Now, it's "proud of their arrogance"

And it's more hate-filled than the 50's.

The only reason there haven't been more lynchings is that the perps probably fear the bloodthirsty killing machines that so many states have become.

for liberal/ persons of color/ immigrants blood is only minimally on display. It has been enabled, encouraged, emboldened and needs to be met head on. We need a "I welcome their hatred" leader right now. 45 is insane and will not go unless forcibly removed, IMHO.

with morons like Mush Limbaugh and Fux News. The only thing progressive about republicans is their lunacy.

They are trying to "cash in."

been like a slow-growing cancer of their party for 70+ years.

You don't get off THAT easily

The famous Declaration of Conscience Speech that she gave was not written by her or anyone in her office. It was actually written by another Senator who approached her and asked her if she would deliver the speech. I was told this story years ago so I don't remember which state the other Senator was from (one of the I states i think). He knew that Smith could have a greater impact delivering the speech then if he did. He told her that, if she would agree to deliver the speech, she could get all the credit for him. For the other Senator, getting that speech out to the public was more important then any personal acknowledgment that he could get from it.

A really good friend of our family was her personal Secretary for years. Years ago Jackie and her family went on a family vacation to Norway (where Jackie's mother was from) and Senator Smith and her aide invited themselves along on trip. They were told to take one suitcase and that they would be responsible for taking care of their own suitcases.

Senator Smith was a really nice lady. My Dad knew her as well and we drove up to see her one weekend and took her out to lunch. She was kind enough to give me a private tour of her Senate Library which was attached to her home.

What memories you must have.

Thanks so much for sharing with us.

When I was 15, I was a summer substitute Senate Page. But as my sponsor was a Democrat (Humphrey), I worked on the Democratic side of the aisle, and we never ran errands for Republicans, just as their pages never ran errands for Democrats.

So I never met her at all.

with whoever was in office, no matter what their party affiliation in both the US and Canadian governments.

He was a Washington correspondent for a newspaper in a small town on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Because of that, he had to know all Senators, Congressmen and Governors from all Great Lakes states as well as the Canadian ambassador. He had to meet on more than one occasion with the US President and the Canadian PM. When I was very small, I sometimes would accompany him to the capitol, and I'd get to hang with, and listen to, people whose names would later become legends. As an 8 year old, all I knew was that my dad had a bunch of friends there with the same first name: "Senator." There was a Republican senator from Illinois that I used to love listening to. My dad told me the guy was known as "The Wizard of Ooze" because of the way he talked. I had no earthly idea what he was talking ABOUT, but he sure was fun to listen to.

Fun obscure fact--one time while I was living in Spain, my dad took the rest of the family down to Mexico for a brief winter vacation. There, sunning himself by the pool, was the current Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau (Justin's father). My father went up to him, said he wanted to tell him three things: that my dad was a member of the Washington press, that he had recognized Trudeau,, and that he had no intention of harassing him for an interview or other comments. Trudeau was immensely grateful, and they exchanged pleasantries.

Fast forward a few months. Some big event is going on at the St. Lawrence Seaway, and both the Canadian PM and the US President (Nixon) are attending. Nixon, who knew my dad since the 1959 Russia trip as Eisenhower's VP, thought he'd play the gracious host, and brought my dad up to Trudeau, saying, "have you met the Prime Minister of Canada?" Trudeau recognized my dad immediately, broke out into a big smile, and said that yes indeed, they had met before. His big moment of social importance having fizzled, Nixon said, "Oh," and shuffled off. Trudeau and my dad had a big laugh over that.

Later on, I had a much better idea who these people were, and what it meant to know them. The last Canadian ambassador to the USA under Clinton is still a friend.

They kept in touch all their lives.

Sometimes she would call my home by mistake - we had some laughs over that.

while she was in office. Some members of the family were politicians so I saw her a couple times as a child. She was certainly a "household name" back then.

Women in the Senate were not exactly many in number. As in "she was the only one."

I never heard anyone speak of her in a negative way. New Englanders were, more often than not, proud of their representatives in Congress and it's one of the few places of power that women were allowed back then. I know that, as a female, the expectations for my future didn't get far beyond housewife and baby maker.

I did none of those things and was something of a trailblazer in women's lib... for what I was able to do.

My brother met her there while he was stationed there, and she was working as a bank teller. In her country, that was about as high as a woman could be expected to go in banking at the time. When his time there was up, she followed him back to Washington. Within five years, she was Vice-Director for the World Bank. She was in charge of the Asia desk (logical enough, as she is from Japan).

My wife and I took extra pains to instill in our two girls that there was nothing they couldn't do, and that their gender was a fact of life, not a barrier to any aspirations. They took our words to heart, luckily enough.

WHAT conscience?

You are no Margaret Chase Smith.

Collins would first have to acquire a conscience.

Certainly nothing that could be construed as a conscience.

Northwestern University, 1971. Of course, there were student protests about the choice, but they failed to sway the university.

Her speech was a full-throated defense of the war in Vietnam and Nixon. It was not well received.

a chance

Of course there are giants in every era, but in that one, some were Republicans. Sigh.